


Underworld

by Woolverine



Series: Even Shadows Dream [5]
Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: F/M, More angst, No Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-06 02:41:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11026908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Woolverine/pseuds/Woolverine
Summary: Reyes' end lines are from the song which has inspired me through the writing of this fic.Wicked Game, by Chris Isaak.





	Underworld

Reyes rejected another incoming call from Keema. He couldn’t face speaking to anyone today. Hadn’t felt like it yesterday, probably wouldn’t feel like it tomorrow. He was working hard, assessing information, collating it, passing it onwards to where it could be used best,  sending instructions to his people. All through emails, though. It wasn’t the first time Reyes had been like this. After they had taken Kadara and the adrenaline had worn off, he had spent days in a dull slump, until his will to succeed overpowered his pain and regret.

Because of her. Because of the Pathfinder. Sara. She had stabbed him in heart again. He hadn’t heard from her since. She was still alive, he knew that much. There had been an email.

 

_ FROM: Cora Harper _

_ TO: Reyes Vidal _

_ Sara is okay. She did die but it was only for a few seconds, as a way to escape a trap. SAM revived her. We’re reviewing the intel we recovered, then going onto the next point in the line.  _

_ Physically, she is fine. She hasn’t been herself since she came back from her downtime with you, no smiles or jokes.  _

_ I don’t even know why I’m contacting you. I neither like or trust you, Vidal. Just seemed like you needed to know how the Pathfinder is doing.  _

 

Reyes hadn’t smiled much since the Pathfinder’s visit either, the ones he had managed had been fake as fuck. Keema had given up trying to jolly him out of his bleak mood. She’d stopped inviting him to visit her upstairs in the Port, and checking in on him every day. It wasn’t that Keema had stopped caring, she had told Reyes that explicitly, but humans seemed to need more space and time to process their emotions, and she was going to give him that. 

Someone pinged the door for entry. Reyes kept it locked from the inside these days. He was going to ignore them as well but then they started pounding on the metal, shouting his name. Reyes dragged himself over to the door and opened it. One of the Collective stood there, a low ranked member who had no idea who Reyes really was. 

“Vidal? You were a military pilot right?” the brown haired woman demanded.

“Yes,” he replied wearily. Why did that even matter?

“Keema Dohrgun sent me to fetch you. The Nexus has been attacked by the kett. They’ve taken the Hyperion, and Pathfinder Ryder has gone after it in her ship.”

“Just Ryder and the Tempest?” Reyes’ adrenaline had gone straight into overdrive. 

“I don’t have any details. Keema is calling in any and all pilots on Kadara, especially those with military training.”

“Shit.” Reyes dropped his datapad on the floor, uncaring if it had survived the fall. He pushed the Collective agent out of his way and sprinted out of Tartarus, dialing Keema as he went. 

“I take it my messenger got through to you, Vidal.” She answered immediately, and he could hear the stress in her usually musical voice. “The Nexus has put out a wide range call for assistance. We’re prepping shuttles now, including yours.” 

“Do we know where are we going?”

“There’s a rally nav point for now. Details are sketchy but more intel is coming in all the time.”

“And the Pathfinder?” He was heading across the wasteground to the lift at full speed. 

“When she found out the Hyperion had been taken, she went in hot pursuit. The Tempest is broadcasting their location continuously so those willing to assist can follow.” 

“Fuck this shitty lift, why is it so fucking slow?” Reyes shouted, banging the door in frustration. 

Others were running over now from the slums. Keema’s messenger had spread the news around Tartarus. Kadara’s scum were rallying in support, weapons ready.

“Keema, might be an idea to put a shuttle down by the gate, be faster than ferrying everyone up in batches using the lift.”

“Everyone?” she asked. 

“Ryder is popular down here. There are at least a dozen with me already.”

These people might not know Reyes was the Charlatan, but they knew he had a relationship of some kind with the Pathfinder. Sentients love gossip, and gossip about the Initiative icon mixing it up with an Exile smuggler had been especially juicy. Their faces were set, yet sympathetic. No one tried to speak to him though a few nodded at him in acknowledgement. 

Kian pushed his way to the front as the lift door finally opened. “You’re not going without me and the girls.” One of his dancers had been an asari commando in a previous life, and the other two with Kian were no less deadly. 

Reyes would have paced to and fro in the lift but it was packed to capacity. He recognised one face as being a former mid level member of the Outcasts, one who had been in hiding. He stared at the man. 

“My family are still in cryo,” the Outcast told him, “on the Hyperion.”

“The Pathfinder will get them back. WE will get them back. The kett have kicked the hornet’s nest this time, and they will die for it. Are we agreed?” Reyes shouted the last three words, and there was a chorus of agreement and support. 

Keema was by the docking terminal, speaking to Cole Dalton who was nodding furiously. Reyes ran to her side. 

“Good to see you, Vidal,” she said, sticking to the formality they usually used in public. 

“Any updates?”

“The asari and turians are on their way. There is a contingent from Eos coming through. Tate has loaded his military trained people onto their shuttles. They will form up with our contingent.”

“Are we prepped?” Reyes demanded. 

“Not quite, but the help you’ve brought will speed things up. Dalton was just saying he needed extra hands.”

“I can’t believe we’re going to help the Initiative,” the Dock Manager said. 

“We’re not. We’re helping the Pathfinder save the twenty thousand people on the Hyperion from torture and death,” Reyes snarled. “They’ve never harmed any of us and we will not abandon them to the kett.”

Dalton recoiled from the smuggler’s ferocity. He had had no idea Vidal contained such fury and command. 

Keema interposed herself between the two humans. 

“Vidal, I’m not much of a pilot, and definitely not a combat pilot. You are, though, correct?”

Reyes dragged his glare away from Dalton. “Correct.”

One of their most trusted lieutenants spoke up. “I’ve flown combat with Vidal. He’s better than anyone else here.”

Keema nodded, a thoughtful expression on her face as she pretended to consider a decision. 

“You’ve always done excellent work for me, Vidal. I need you to surpass yourself this time. Take the lead on our formation. Get our forces there intact. Do what it takes to save Ryder and your people.”

“I will do everything it takes, Keema. And more. Believe me.”

Before the doors to his shuttle closed, Dalton thrust a datapad through. “Details on the other pilots. The ones with combat experience are marked with a tick.”

Reyes took the datapad with only a nod for the Dock Manager. 

Once his vessel was in the air, Reyes opened the channel designated for the Kardara ships. 

“This is Anubis. Combat formation will be decided and formed en route. Stay tuned for your orders. Meanwhile, close up and fly smart. We’re the damned cavalry, and we will turn the fires of hell on those kett bastards.”

There was a chorus of acknowledgements. Reyes turned his attention to the datapad. Once he wouldn’t have been as lightning fast at absorbing written information and making decisions based on it, but his experience as the Charlatan had honed his skills. He was able to pick out the Collective pilots whose abilities he knew, others with whose piloting he was familiar, and those who were strangers. He roughed out attack formations, who would lead which wing, and what air tactics they would follow. Before they were even halfway to the rally point, everyone had their orders. 

Next, Reyes opened a channel to Nexus Ops. 

“Nexus. This is Anubis, Kardara Port contingent command.”

“Nexus Ops here. Go ahead, Anubis.”

“We are thirteen shuttles, fully loaded with ground forces, heading to the rally nav point. Any further updates on final destination?” His voice was cold, professional. This had been his day job, after all, back in the Milky Way.

“The Tempest is still in hot pursuit, Anubis. Final destination not known yet but there is a new nav point once forces are rallied. Do you have flight combat training or experience?”

“Former Alliance fighter pilot, Nexus Ops. Transmitting our planned attack formation to you now.”

“Appreciated, Anubis. Confirming receipt.” The turian female sounded young. “Thank you for coming to our shindig, Kadara Port.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for anything, Nexus Ops. Kadara Port loves to party. Anubis out.” 

Now, Reyes had his first chance to collect his thoughts since he’d heard the news. He took deep breaths, relaxing his muscles, trying to rein in his adrenaline. He needed to calm, save himself for the fight ahead. He closed his eyes, trying to focus on the here and now. His mind kept skipping between the past and the future. He had reconciled himself, more or less, to a future without Sara, but that reconciliation had been based on a universe where she lived, breathed, and was happy without him. He had never properly considered a future where she was dead, lost to him forever. Reyes found the thought of such a future unbearable. Oh, he would live on without her, would meet other people, have other relationships, such was life, but Reyes knew his soul would always have a Sara shaped gap in it. He conjured up an image of her beloved face, her eyes full of laughter and stars, her mouth inviting his kiss. If it came to a choice between saving Sara and saving the Hyperion - Reyes would save the ark, because that is what Sara would want, even if it would shatter his heart. 

“I wish I had only you to think of,” she had said to him, that last time in Tartarus. He had never told he loved her, and Sara hadn’t told him how she felt either. Reyes knew she cared for him deeply, perhaps even loved him in return. That’s why it had been so destroying when she walked away from him and Sloane’s corpse. That’s why he had tried to keep a distance between them. Reyes knew that Sara would always put her duty, the safety of others, ahead of her own self-interest. The Pathfinder was a shining light to those who had come from the Milky Way, and Sara was lost in the shadows cast by that light. He didn’t want to do anything that would diminish either the light or the woman. 

“I’d never dreamed I’d love somebody like you,” Reyes whispered to himself. “I’d never dreamed I’d lose somebody like you.”  

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Reyes' end lines are from the song which has inspired me through the writing of this fic.
> 
> Wicked Game, by Chris Isaak.


End file.
